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Hannah Dennett, University of Warwick Hannah.Dennett@warwick.ac.uk This blog reflects on Hannah Dennett’s work to produce the ‘Tiny Traces’ exhibition, which was given a special commendation in the Social History Society’s 2023 Public History Prize. After a long campaign by its founder Thomas Coram, London’s Foundling Hospital opened its doors on 25 March 1741 to receive … Continued
Dr Michael Lambert, Lancaster University m.lambert3@lancaster.ac.uk @GrandCamouflage The current erosion of welfare state institutions – the National Health Service (NHS), social services, and schools – caused by years of underfunding and political intervention exposed by the pandemic, mean that many hark back to a time when things were different. A time when there was a … Continued
Dr Alice Sage, Goldsmiths, University of London @aliceemmasage This blogpost explains Alice Sage’s winning Pamela Cox Public History Prize project. You can read the announcement and watch an interview between the SHS and Alice here. This exhibition and engagement project was inspired by the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Cottingley Fairy Photographs in … Continued
Loretta Dolan, University of Western Australia loretta.dolan@uwa.edu.au @loretta_dolan In 1599, a young girl of no more than twelve years of age called Maud Preece, told a Chester magistrate who was interviewing her about the theft of a hat, that she had been brought to the city four or five years previously. She could not remember … Continued
Dr Deniz Arzuk, University College London @denizarzuk https://changingchildhoods.com/ On June 1st, after 10 weeks of lockdown, primary schools in England have reopened for children in Years 1, 6, and Reception. Yet, the initial reports suggest that turn-out is low, and parents are still unconvinced and hesitant to send their children back to school. This is … Continued
Dr Vivien Newman, First World War Women @worldwarwomen On 20 April, The Shields Gazette reported that ‘residents are knitting hearts to cheer up patients being treated for coronavirus in intensive care’. This reminded me of knitting in World War One. In 1914, Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener issued a Call to Knitting Needles. … Continued
Professor David M. Pomfret, University of Hong Kong pomfretd@hku.hk In the 2001 Hong Kong movie ‘My Life as McDull,’ an animated pig named Mrs Mak dupes her son into thinking he is on a much-anticipated trip to the Maldives. Mrs Mak cannot actually afford such a trip so instead she buys tickets for the leading … Continued
In April 1947, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) was authorized to bring 1000 young Holocaust survivors to Canada through the War Orphans Project. The Canadian federal government required all young newcomers to be placed in foster families. This led the CJC to set up a campaign to find potential foster parents. Bringing together scholarship on … Continued
Dr Laura Mair is REF Impact Officer for the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. Alongside completing her doctoral research on the ragged school movement, in 2015-16 she acted as research consultant to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Museum of Childhood for their ‘On Their Own’ exhibition on British child migrants.
In her contribution to the Research, she reflects on her experience of researching the intimate history of children’s and adult’s lives in the Victorian ragged schools, which is the subject of her new book ‘Religion and Relationships in Ragged Schools: An Intimate History of Educating the Poor, 1844-1870’, which is published by Routledge.
Dr Mischa Honeck and Dr James Marten are co-editors of ‘War and Childhood in the Era of the Two World Wars’, an new edited volume published by Cambridge University Press. In their contribution to the Research Exchange, they reflect on the young lives and uncomfortable realities featured in this collection, which complicates the standard equation of childhood and victimhood in times of war.
Dr Mischa Honeck teaches US and transatlantic history at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He was a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, and is the author of Our Frontier Is the World: The Boy Scouts in the Age of American Ascendancy (Cornell University Press, 2018).
Dr James Marten is Chair of History at Marquette University, Wisconsin, and a leading authority in both the history of the US Civil War and the history of childhood, whose books include ‘The Children’s Civil War’ (University of North Carolina Press, 1998).
